“I watched that docuseries.”
Isobel loathed the overdramatic docuseries, with its excessive use of punk music and its red filter, so she tuned out the rest of the boys’ chatter. But Oliver’s comment continued to nag at her. Champions who formed alliances historically fared better than those who did not, but even with four other champions already named, Isobel couldn’t think of one who would willingly team up with her.
“So how do you want to go, Isobel?” Oliver asked, interrupting her thoughts. “The Guillotine’s Gift would be a good curse, if I had a choice. Nice and quick. Though that doesn’t seem like it’s the Lowe kid’s style—”
“You don’t have to be a dick, mate,” Hassan told him—a choice of words that only seemed to make Oliver angrier.
“I can’t wait until the whole town shows up to your funeral,” he hissed. “That’ll be a nice change.”
Ignoring him, Isobel set out the spell’s seven ingredients on each point of the septogram, one at a time. Every enchantment always had seven components.
“You know, I think it would be even worse for the Macaslans to win than the Lowes. The Lowes, at least, keep to themselves. But what would the Macaslans do with that power? You know how they love funerals. Wouldn’t you think they’d want to make some more?”
Isobel flexed her fingers. On her right pinky, she wore a Knock It Out self-defense curse, which she’d added to her arsenal ever since reporters had started following her to school. She wouldn’t mind seeing Oliver’s face when the enchantment slammed him to the floor.
But then Hassan took a weary step back from Isobel. “He does have a point,” he admitted, and Isobel’s rage dissolved into bitter, hopeless resentment. At the two boys. At Briony Thorburn. At her whole family.
Determined not to say anything—or worse, cry—she focused on her work. When she finished, the spellstone pulsed white, good as new.
“You’re welcome,” she gritted out, and the boys left without even a mumbled goodbye.
“I’m going to call his mother,” said a voice behind her, and Isobel turned to face her own mother, leaning against the doorway to the shop’s backroom. Honora Jackson had fair skin and curly blond hair that hung nearly to her waist, and she wore a floral ankle-length skirt. Her face, generally gleaming from a number of cosmetic spells, was unusually pale.
“How long were you standing there?” Isobel asked.
“Long enough. Can we talk?” Her mother’s voice was hesitant. Lately, whenever they spoke, it ended in a screaming match.
“I’m not in the mood.” Isobel swept past her, grabbed her belongings, and climbed upstairs to her mother’s apartment. Her bedroom was the first on the left. It was far different from her room in her father’s house, which was all brocade wallpaper and tarnished faux-gold everything and a musty smell no air freshener could mask. Her room here was clean and full of color, each of the walls a varying shade of gold and pink. This was the room where she hosted sleepovers, where she got ready for school dances. Her sanctuary.
Isobel collapsed onto her satin sheets. A moment later, the lock on her door unlatched with a loud click, and her mother entered.
“What did I say about the automatic lock spell on your door?” her mother asked.
Isobel hurriedly reached over to her nightstand and stuffed the pile of tabloids into the top drawer. She didn’t want to admit that she’d been reading what the Glamour Inquirer printed about her.
“I’d rather you didn’t barge into my room,” Isobel grumbled.
“Yes, well, I do pay the rent.” Honora perched at the edge of Isobel’s bed. “I visited the Lowes today.”
“What?” Isobel had never heard of anyone outside the Lowe family walking through their wrought iron gates. Sometimes she forgot that anyone lived in that house in the forest, that it was home to anything more than haunting stories.
“You don’t exactly refuse an invitation from Marianne Lowe,” she said flatly. “She summoned all the spell-and cursemakers in town, just as she did twenty years ago. I’ve lived in Ilvernath long enough to know what was expected.”
“Marianne Lowe is still alive?” Isobel crinkled her nose. The stories she’d heard about that woman made her seem like she was a thousand years old.
Her mother laughed. “Unfortunately, yes. And I met the Lowe champion, the one from the newspaper. He…” She bit her lip.
“Alistair,” Isobel said. “I’ve met him, too.”